Nature's Birth, Just a Whisper on the Wind

“Hush!” I said in one of those motherly tones that is a loud whisper. “Listen to the sounds.”

The kids and I were on a spring adventure. In the winter months there is just not enough light, and even dusk feels unfriendly. But come spring, dusk is alive again, and there is no shortage of company. Strange squawks come from the woods, made by mysterious creatures that remind me of baby dinosaurs. Owls hoot, and make other odd mating sounds. Crickets play, not drowned out by the ruckus of summertime’s cicadas. Frogs ribbit, basking in the pleasant temperatures. There is no reason to be intimidated by the darkness in spring.

The pre-dusk adventures via scooter.

At dusk, shortly after dinner, we collected our adventure gear—namely, the stroller. We left Big Dog and Old Man Dog at home, because I couldn’t be troubled with a dog’s need to catch and leave a scent every two feet. Springtime dusk adventures are stealthy, when you whisk along through nature observing with no real purpose—no one’s will imposes on the moment. It is just you, the human, like a tiny insignificant bug, moving slowly through springtime’s vastness.

The boy, being five, is entirely capable of walking a trail on foot, and has proved so on many occasions. But there is something magical about a stroller ride at dusk in springtime. So I pushed the seat flat, and the boy clambered on, his rear farther back in the seat than it ought to be. The tot squeezed between his legs at the edge of the stroller, and I pushed the stroller on down the quiet streets. There was a subtle rustle among the joints of the poor contraption, like a polite complaint.

“No drama,” I warned the boy, “Or you are walking.” The hands he held three inches from his sister’s face dropped at his side, defeated.

“The moon!” The boy said, louder than I would have preferred in such a peaceful place. “Look! It is following us,” he giggled. “Faster! Faster! It is keeping up!” I gazed up at that moon, just a hair over first quarter. It suited the mood perfectly—not the dramatic light of a full moon, or the brief appearance of a crescent moon. Just the perfectly balanced first quarter, hanging there in the middle of the sky.

We wrapped around bits of forest interspersed with houses. I pointed out that even the plain-Jane shrubs were blooming. The kids heard bits and pieces of what I said, too busy giggling among themselves, so I didn’t point out that the plum tree had already dropped its blooms. Spring comes and goes so very quickly here. Already the peak has been reached, and the heat is just around the corner. I inhaled that cool air, not dreading the heat in the least. The sticky nights of summer have their place, but right then spring was where it ought to be—settling itself inside my lungs.

We drew closer to the creek, where the most concentrated nature sounds can be heard on both sides of the road. I stopped us there, bending down at the children’s level. “Hush! Listen!”

“Listen to what? I don’t hear anything,” the boy said, again in a voice louder than suited the peaceful mood. This wasn’t a peaceful walk to him. It was an adventure, and adventures don’t require soft words.

“I hear crickets,” I said. The children stopped a moment, as though they had pricked their ears up. “I hear the wind in the trees.” The sound rustled through the eccentric little under-story trees of the creek, all their branches tangled with muscadine grapevines. “I hear an airplane,” I nodded to the blinking light moving quickly through the darkening sky. “I hear a frog,” I whispered. The children gazed outward at the vague shapes of elephant ears hunkered down around the creek, their outlines increasingly hard to define in the near darkness.

“I hear spring,” I whispered.

We carried on, around the twist of the road, homeward bound. Up ahead the sound of several neighborhood girls—probably middle school age—were trotting along a ways ahead of us, giggling noisily. I was just like one of those girls twenty years ago. As children we felt the enthusiasm of the rebirth of nature, even if we didn’t know what it was.

We arrived in the driveway just in time for the fallout. Someone pinched someone, and in return another someone pinched that other someone, and then both someone’s attacked each other equally and it was one noisy sibling brawl in a tired, politely complaining stroller.

“There’s Sirius—the brightest star in the sky,” I pointed upward in a distracting manner. The kids didn’t pay any mind. “Oh just go inside,” I said as I ushered them out of the stroller, throwing in the towel.

I took my time walking in as I looked up at Sirius. I listened to all my springtime companions as they sang their songs in the background. The sky looked so very welcoming. I let out a long, deep breath, and went inside.